2 1 Introduction Recent empirical studies show that the term-structures of dividend risk, equity return volatility and equity risk premia are downward-sloping (van Binsbergen, Brandt, and Koijen, 2012). These findings are particularly important because they question the validity of the most successful asset-pricing models. In particular, the time-varying disaster risk models developed by Gabaix (2012) and Wachter (2013) provide a convincing foundation for the observed levels and dynamics of equity volatility and risk premia, but implies term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia that are inconsistent with the data. In this paper we account for the empirically supported fact that dividends recover after disasters. While either natural or man-made disasters affect both physical and, to a lower extent, human capital, it is easy to understand disaster recovery by means of knowledge conservation. Available technology and know-how allow to speed-up post-disaster economic growth. Indeed, capital accumulation is easier the second time around because it replicates a known investment pattern. Moreover, disasters induce government spending to stimulate the economic environment and to foster competition. 1 We show that disaster recovery helps understand the shape of the term-structures of equity. Indeed, we provide theoretical evidence that recoveries kill the upward-sloping effect of time-varying risk of rare disaster and therefore imply empirically consistent term-structures of equity. The reason is that, in the presence of recoveries, the volatility of dividends is larger in the short-term than in the long-term. In equilibrium, the properties of dividend volatility transmit to stock returns and imply downward-sloping term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia. We consider a pure-exchange economy (Lucas, 1978) with a representative investor who has Epstein and Zin (1989) preferences. As usual, the investor chooses a consumption plan and a portfolio invested in one stock and one riskless asset to maximize his expected lifetime utility. In equilibrium, the investor consumes the dividend paid by the stock and invests his entire wealth in it. The key feature of our model is that rare disasters might hit dividends. We assume that the intensity of disaster arrivals is time-varying (Wachter, 2013) and that recoveries take place right after the occurrence of a disaster (Gourio, 2008). We show that the presence of recoveries implies high dividend volatility in the short-term and low dividend volatility in the long-term. The reason is that, in the short-term (e.g., 1 day), the dividend incurs the risk of a disaster, but the horizon is too short to benefit from a significant recovery. In the long-term (e.g., 20 years), however, disaster risk is still present, but 1 While there is a debate about the short-run and long-run impacts of disasters on economic growth, developed economies, such as the U.S., seem to be able to mitigate adverse effects and exploit growth opportunities. See Cavallo, Galiani, Noy, and Pantano (2013) and references therein. 2

3 dividends have a significant amount of time to recover. We characterize conditions such that, in equilibrium, stock returns inherit the dynamics of dividend growth rates. Therefore, the term-structure of equity volatility is, as the term-structure of dividend volatility, downwardsloping in our model. Under standard preferences (elasticity of intertemporal substitution larger than one), the timing of the equilibrium compensation required by the representative investor follows equity volatility and, in turn, the term-structure of equity risk premia is also downward-sloping. To understand the dynamic patterns of the term-structures of equity over the business cycle, we define bad (resp., good) economic times as states of the world in which the disaster intensity is high (resp., low). Consistent with van Binsbergen, Hueskes, Koijen, and Vrugt (2013), we show that the slopes of the term-structures of equity are pro-cyclical in our model, being smaller in bad times than in good times. The reason is that, in bad times, the disaster intensity is large and is consequently expected to revert back down to its mean in the longterm. This implies a significantly larger amount of risk in the short term than in the long term, and therefore steep downward-sloping term-structures of equity. In good times, however, the disaster intensity is small and will eventually revert back up to its long-term mean. That is, disaster intensity risk is larger in the long-term than in the short-term. In equilibrium, this mitigates the downward-sloping effect of recoveries and implies flat term-structures of equity. Accounting for recoveries helps explain the shape of the term-structure of equity, but it has the undesired consequence of significantly decreasing the level of the risk premium. To resolve this issue, we extend our model and assume that, conditional on a disaster, dividends drop more significantly and recover faster than total output. This assumption is motivated by our empirical exercise, which provides evidence that aggregate U.S. dividends are more strongly struck by disasters and recover faster than the U.S. aggregate consumption (or GDP). We also find that dividends scaled by consumption are stationary, and therefore we assume that they are co-integrated in our model. In addition, we follow Bansal and Yaron (2004) and assume that the expected growth rate of dividends and consumption is mean-reverting and reasonably persistent. We argue that, even though long-run risk and time-varying risk of rare disasters imply empirically inconsistent term-structures, extending the latter model with plausible recoveries helps explain simultaneously several important properties of dividends, consumption, and asset prices. 2 First, the term-structure of consumption volatility is upward-sloping, whereas that of dividend volatility is downward-sloping (Marfè, 2013). The former occurs because the consumption s speed of recovery is not high enough to outweigh time-varying risk of disasters and 2 Consistent with the international evidence documented by Gourio (2008), our calibration implies that dividends recover after large drops in about five years. This is the joint result of long-run growth and after-disaster excessive conditional growth. 3

4 long-run risk, both of which imply a large amount of risk in the long-term. The term-structure of dividend volatility, however, is downward-sloping because dividends recover sufficiently fast to be safer in the long-term than in the short-term. We provide empirical support for such a mechanism. Co-integration requires that consumption and dividends face the same permanent shock. However, the stationary dividend-share of consumption moves negatively with disasters and positively with recoveries. This implies that disasters are transitory shocks and that dividends load more on both disaster risk and recovery than consumption does. Consequently, the levered exposition of dividends to transitory risk helps explain the gap between the upward-sloping term-structure of consumption risk and the downward-sloping term-structure of dividend risk. Second, the term-structures of equity are downward-sloping, except in good times where they are slightly upward-sloping. As explained earlier, the slopes of the term-structures are largest in good times because, in that state, the disaster intensity is expected to revert back up to its long-term mean. This creates more risk in the long-term than in the short-term and therefore larger slopes than in any other states. In our benchmark model the term-structures are flat in good times, yet they are slightly increasing in the extended model because of the presence of long-run risk. Third, the aforementioned properties of the term-structures of equity risk premia and volatility hold even for an elasticity of intertemporal substitution smaller than one. 3 reason is that stock returns inherit the dynamic properties of dividends as long as the EIS is larger than some lower bound. This lower bound is equal to one for the consumption claim, whereas it turns out to be smaller than one for the dividend claim. This occurs because the empirical property that the dividend-share of consumption moves with disasters and recoveries implies a levered exposition of dividends on disaster risk. Fourth, several asset-pricing moments are in line with the empirical findings. Indeed, the risk-free rate is about 1% and its volatility 3%. The equity risk premium is about 7%. Interestingly, the model generates a relatively large risk premium because, in the presence of recoveries, the risk premium increases when the elasticity of intertemporal substitution decreases (Gourio, 2008). 4 The Finally, stock-return volatility is about 10%, somewhat lower than in the data because, for the sake of exposition, we do not include idiosyncratic risk in the dividend dynamics. Fifth, the ability of the model to solve the risk-free rate and equity premium puzzle and simultaneously capture the negative slopes of the term-structures of equity is robust to the 3 A major critique of long-run risk and rare disasters models is their reliance on large elasticity of intertemporal substitution (Epstein, Farhi, and Strzalecki, 2014). As the estimations performed by Hall (1988) show, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is likely to be in fact smaller than one. 4 Note that if disasters are permanent, then the risk premium increases with the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. 4

5 setting of investors preferences. In particular, we show that the result can be obtained for any value of elasticity of intertemporal substitution in the range (1/2,2) and for low relative risk aversion. Our model builds on the literature about time-varying risk of rare disasters. Such models provide a theoretical explanation of a number of price patterns (Gabaix (2012), Wachter (2013)) and has found empirical support (as in Berkman, Jacobsen, and Lee (2011) among others). We complement this literature by pointing out the importance of recovery (Gourio (2012)) and focusing on the otherwise puzzling term-structures of both fundamentals and equity. A few recent papers provide equilibrium explanations which help to explain the term-structure of equity. Ai, Croce, Diercks, and Li (2012), Belo, Collin-Dufresne, and Goldstein (2014) and Marfè (2014) focus respectively on investment risk, financial leverage and labor relations: these macroeconomic channels contribute to endogenize the downwardsloping term-structure of dividend risk and, in turn, of equity. This paper differs from the aforementioned studies because it focuses on an endowment economy where dividends feature time-varying disaster risk and recover after the occurrence of a disaster. The model calibration provides support to the idea that the disaster-recovery channel has a potentially sizeable quantitative impact on asset price dynamics. Other theoretical studies that help understand the term-structures of equity focus on non-standard specifications of beliefs formation and preferences. These are proposed by Croce, Lettau, and Ludvigson (2012) and Berrada, Detemple, and Rindisbacher (2013), respectively. In addition, Lettau and Wachter (2007, 2009) show in a partial equilibrium setting that a pricing kernel which enhances short-run risk can help to simultaneously explain the term-structure of equity and the cross-sectional value premium. Similar to Marfè (2014), our equilibrium framework allows to endogenize the pricing kernel and to provide an economic rationale for the intuition provided in Lettau and Wachter (2007, 2009). Similar to Longstaff and Piazzesi (2004), we assume in the extension of our model that the dividend-share of consumption is stationary. While they focus on the relation between the dynamics of corporate cash flows and the equity premium, our focus is on the impact of recoveries and recursive preferences on the term-structures of equity. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides empirical support to our main assumptions; Section 3 presents and solves the model; Sections 4 and 5 describe the implications of recoveries on the term-structures of dividend risk, equity risk premia, and equity volatility; Section 6 extends the model to account for long-run risk and for the fact that, conditional on a disaster, dividends drop more and recover faster than consumption; and Section 7 concludes. Derivations are provided in Appendix A. 5

6 2 Empirical Support Gourio (2008) provides evidence that rare disasters are followed by recovery. This means that, after large drops, GDP and consumption growth feature a conditional mean that is larger than the unconditional one. Such evidence suggests that, in contrast with what is usually considered in the literature, rare disasters should be modelled as transitory shocks instead of permanent shocks. Whether disasters have transitory or permanent nature is key to the extent of modelling the term-structure of risk of macroeconomic fundamentals, i.e., the volatility of growth rates computed over different time-horizons or the corresponding variance-ratios. Belo, Collin-Dufresne, and Goldstein (2014) and Marfè (2013, 2014) document that aggregate dividends are characterized by a markedly downward-sloping term-structure of risk, whereas aggregate consumption features a slightly upward-sloping term-structure. The corresponding variance-ratios are reported in the upper panel of Figure 1. The co-integrating relationship between consumption and dividends allows us to interpret their different termstructures of risk as follows. Since consumption and dividends are co-integrated, they share the same permanent shock, whereas they are allowed to feature a different exposure to a transitory component. The former yields an upward-sloping effect due for instance to timevariation in long-run growth, whereas the latter yields a downward-sloping effect due to its mean-reverting dynamics. Because consumption loads to a lesser extent on the transitory shock than dividends do, the upward-sloping effect dominates and the term-structure of risk increases for consumption growth. Dividends, instead, load to a larger extent on the transitory shock, implying a dominance of the downward-sloping effect and therefore a decreasing term-structure of risk. We provide empirical support to the above interpretation in Figure 1. The middle panel of Figure 1 shows the time-series of the logarithm of aggregate dividends and highlights the rare disaster events defined by drops larger than two times the standard deviation of growth rates. Consistent with Gourio (2008), we observe that a substantial recovery occurs during the two years following the rare events. The lower panel of Figure 1 shows the time-series of aggregate dividends relative to consumption. We observe that the dividend-share moves negatively with disasters and positively with recovery. 5 Two implications are noteworthy. First, since consumption and dividends are co-integrated, the dividend-share is stationary and cannot depend on the permanent shock. This provides further support to the idea that disasters are transitory shocks. Second, the sensitivity of the dividend-share to disasters and recovery suggests that dividends load more on disaster risk than consumption does. This helps explain why dividends are riskier than 5 Similar results are obtained if we look at the dividend-share of GDP instead of consumption. 6

7 Variance Ratio Consumption Dividends Dividends with repurchases Log Dividends Disaster 1 Disaster Disaster +1 Disaster Time Standardized Dividend Share Time Figure 1: Empirical evidence concerning disasters and recovery in consumption and dividends. The upper panel displays the variance-ratios (VR) of dividends from the US non-financial corporate sector, as in Belo, Collin-Dufresne, and Goldstein (2014). The VR of the US aggregate consumption are computed using data from Beeler and Campbell (2012). The VR procedure uses the exposition of Campbell, Lo, and MacKinlay (1997, pp ), which accounts for heteroscedasticity and overlapping observations. The middle and lower panels display the time-series of the logarithm of dividends and the standardized dividend-share of consumption. Red markers denote disasters, i.e., negative yearly growth rates of dividends larger than two standard deviations. Green, blue and black markers denote observations one year before, one year ahead and two years ahead of the disasters, respectively. 7

8 consumption at short horizons and why, as commented above, the term-structure of dividend and consumption risk are downward-sloping and upward-sloping, respectively. Overall, we observe the following stylized facts: i) dividend risk is downward-sloping; ii) consumption risk is upward-sloping; iii) dividends are riskier than consumption at short horizons; iv) dividends and consumption are cointegrated; v) disasters are followed by recovery; vi) dividends load more on disaster risk than consumption does, and vii) the dividend-share moves with disasters and recoveries. In Sections 3, 4, and 5, we show that recoveries help explain the observed negative slope of the term-structures of equity even if consumption and dividends are equal in equilibrium. In Section 6, we extend the model and assume parsimonious joint dynamics for consumption and dividends, which capture the seven stylized facts mentioned above. This model reconciles standard asset pricing facts, such as the low risk-free rate and the high equity premium, with the downward-sloping term-structure of equity and the pro-cyclical dynamics of its slope. 3 Time-Varying Rare Disasters and Recoveries In this section, we first describe the economy and then solve for the equilibrium price of dividend strips. In our model, dividends are subject to time-varying rare disasters (Gabaix, 2012; Wachter, 2013) followed by recoveries (Gourio, 2008; Nakamura, Steinsson, Barro, and Ursua, 2013). 3.1 The Economy We consider a pure-exchange economy à la Lucas (1978) populated by a representative investor with recursive preferences (Epstein and Zin, 1989). The investor s utility function is defined by U t [(1 δ dt )C 1 γ θ t + δ dt E t ( U 1 γ t+dt ) 1 θ ] θ 1 γ, where C is consumption, δ is the subjective discount factor per unit of time, γ is the coefficient of risk aversion, ψ is the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS), and θ = 1 γ. 1 1 ψ The investor can invest in two assets: one stock and one risk-free asset. The stock and the risk-free asset are in positive supply of one unit and in zero net supply, respectively. The 8

9 stock pays a continuous stream of dividends, D t, defined as follows: log D t = x t + z t dx t = (µ x 1 2 σ2 x)dt + σ x dw xt dz t = φz t dt + ξ t dn zt dλ t = λ r (λ m λ t )dt + λ v λt dw λt, (1) where (W xt, W λt ) is a standard Brownian motion and N t is a pure jump process with stochastic intensity λ t. The jump size ξ follows a negative exponential distribution with parameter η t. That is, the jump size is negative and characterized by the following moment-generating function: ( ϱ(u) E t e uξ t ) 1 = 1 + u. η The log-dividend process is a sum of two terms. The first term, x t, is the dividend growth rate had there been no disasters and consequently no recoveries either. The aim of the second term, z t, is to model disasters and recoveries. Conditional on the occurrence of a disaster (dn t = 1), the log-dividend drops instantaneously by an amount ξ t. Following the drop, the process z t reverts back to zero at speed φ and therefore implies a dividend recovery. If the mean-reversion speed φ is equal to zero, there are no recoveries and disasters are permanent Equilibrium In order to solve for the prices of dividend strips, we follow the procedure documented by Eraker and Shaliastovich (2008), which is based on Campbell and Shiller (1988) s loglinearization. The first step consists in characterizing the price of the stock, the state-price density and therefore the risk-neutral measure. Then, the price at time t of a dividend strip with residual maturity τ is obtained by computing the expected present value under the risk-neutral measure of a dividend D t+τ paid at time t + τ. Recursive preferences lead to a non-affine state-price density. Then, to preserve analytic tractability, we make use of the following log-linearization. The discrete time (continuously compounded) log-return on aggregate wealth (e.g. the claim on the representative investor s 6 Nakamura, Steinsson, Barro, and Ursua (2013) point out that disasters are not necessarily instantaneous, and can be partly transitory and partly permanent. We keep the model simple and do not account for such patterns because they do not alter the main results of the paper recoveries imply downward-sloping termstructures of equity. 9

11 The state variables belong to the affine class and their dynamics can be written as: dy t = µ(y t )dt + Σ(Y t )dw t + J t dn t µ(y t ) = M + KY t 3 Σ(Y t )Σ(Y t ) = h + H i Yt i i=1 l(y t ) = l 0 + l 1 Y t, where M R 3, K R 3 3, h R 3 3, H R 3 3 3, l 0 R 3, and l 1 R 3 3, W = (W x, W z, W λ ) is a standard Brownian motion; N t = (N xt, N zt, N λt ) is a vector of independent pure jump processes; l(y ) R 3 is the corresponding vector of jump intensities; J t R 3 is the vector of jump sizes; and denotes element-by-element multiplication. The coefficients A R and B R 3 solve a system of equations provided in Appendix A.1. Proof. See Appendix A.1. The price-dividend ratio is stationary in our model and consequently independent of x t (B 1 = 0). Moreover, the price-dividend ratio decreases (resp., increases) with the intensity λ t when the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is larger (resp., smaller) than one. The reason is as follows. An increase in the intensity increases the likelihood that negative jumps in dividends will take place in the future. This has two opposite effects on the investor s behavior and therefore on prices. First, the possibility that more jumps might occur implies that the investor decreases his stock holdings. This investment effect generates a drop in the price. Second, the possibility of more frequent downward jumps implies lower future consumption. Because the investor wants to smooth consumption over time, he decreases current consumption and hence invests more in the stock. This consumption effect increases the stock price. The investment effect dominates when the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is larger than one, whereas the consumption effect is the strongest when the elasticity is smaller than one. For a similar reason, the price-dividend ratio decreases (resp., increases) with the jump process z t when the EIS is larger (resp., smaller) than one. Indeed, a drop in z t, today, indicates that future dividend growth will be large because a recovery will take place. Because the investment effect outweighs the consumption effect when the EIS is larger than one, a drop in z t implies an increase in the stock price. Conversely, a drop in z implies a decrease in the stock price when the EIS is smaller than one because, in this case, the consumption effect dominates. The risk-free rate r t, market price of continuous risk vector Λ c t, and market price of jump risk vector Λ d t are defined in Proposition 2. 11

12 Proposition 2. The dynamics of the state-price density M are written dm t M t = r t dt Λ c tdw t 3 i=1 ( ( ) ) Λ d i t dn i t E t Λ d i t l i (Y t )dt, where the risk-free rate r t, the market price of continuous risk Λ c t, and the market price of jump risk Λ d t satisfy r t = Φ 0 + Φ 1 Y t, Λ c t = Σ(Y t ) Ω, Λ d i t = 1 e Ω i Jt i, i. The coefficient Φ 0 R and Φ 1 R 3 solve a system of equations provided in Appendix A.2. Proof. See Appendix A.2. The risk-free rate is stationary and therefore independent of x t. It is, however, a decreasing linear function of the intensity λ t, irrespective of the value assigned to the EIS. The reason is that an increase in the expected frequency of a disaster increases the representative investor s desire to save, and thus decreases the risk-free rate level. Such an effect increases in magnitude with relative risk aversion. The decreasing linear relation between the risk-free rate and the disaster process z t is understood as follows. A disaster, i.e. a drop in z t, will imply a recovery and, therefore, high future dividend growth. One the one hand, because future investment opportunities improve, the investor reduces risk-free asset holdings to increase risky investments if EIS is larger than one. On the other hand, larger future consumption implies an increase in current consumption and therefore a decrease in both risky and riskfree position if EIS is lower than one. In both cases, risk-free holdings move positively with z t, indicating that the risk-free rate decreases with it. The first component of the market price of continuous risk Λ c t is constant and equal to γσ x (Lucas, 1978): it rewards the investor for bearing the constant dividend growth risk. Another component of Λ c t is associated with jump intensity. Such a term is stochastic because the jump intensity features a square-root diffusion (see Equation (1)). Moreover, the investor gets a reward Λ d t for bearing the risk of a jump in z t : such a term is constant because the jump size ξ t features an i.i.d. distribution. Proposition 3 characterizes the price of a dividend strip with time to maturity τ. 12

14 The level and shape of the term-structures of volatility and risk premia are inherited by the level and shape of the term-structure of dividend growth rate volatility when EIS is larger than one. We start with a discussion on the term-structure of dividend growth rate volatility in Section 4 and then document the properties of the term-structures of return volatility and risk premia in Section 5. 4 Term Structure of Dividend Risk In this section, we discuss the term-structure of dividend growth rate volatility because it is the main determinant of the shape of the term-structures of equity volatility and risk premium. If not mentioned otherwise, the values of the parameters used in our analysis are presented in Table 1. The parameters are borrowed from Wachter (2013) with the exception of recovery from disaster our peculiar parameter. 7 We set a relatively small speed of recovery (φ = 7.5%) such that, after a drop, it takes the dividend about five years to recover. This is due to the joint effect of the mean-reversion of z t and the positive expected growth of x t, and is consistent with the international evidence documented by Gourio (2008). The jump size parameter implies that, conditional to a jump, the dividend drops by 20% on average (Barro, 2006; Barro and Ursua, 2008). If not mentioned otherwise, the state variables are set at their steady-state (λ t = λ m, z t = 0), whereas the value of x t is irrelevant since the equilibrium is stationary. The term-structure of dividend volatility and variance ratio is characterized in Proposition 5 below. Proposition 5. The dividend growth rate volatility at a τ-year horizon, σ D (t, τ), is written σ D (t, τ) = ( ) 1 MGF(t, τ; 2) τ log, MGF(t, τ; 1) 2 where the moment-generating function MGF(.;.) satisfies MGF(t, τ; u) = E t ( D u t+τ ) = e ā(τ;u)+ b(τ;u) Y t. The deterministic functions ā(.;.) R and b(.;.) R 3 solve a system of ordinary differential equations provided in Appendix A.4. 7 Parameters σ x, µ x, λ m, λ r and λ v are as in Wachter (2013), jump size distribution is not exactly the same but η = 4 captures the same average jump size. 14

15 Parameter Symbol Value Permanent shock: Instantaneous volatility σ x 0.02 Long-run expected growth µ x Disasters: Speed of reversion of jump intensity λ r 0.08 Long-term jump intensity λ m Volatility of jump intensity λ v Jump size parameter η 4 Speed of recovery φ Preferences: Relative risk aversion γ 3 Elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) ψ 1.5 Time discount factor δ 0.96 Table 1: Calibration The dividend variance ratio at a τ-year horizon, VR D (t, τ), is defined as follows: VR D (t, τ) = σ D(t, τ) 2 σ D (t, 1) 2. Proof. See Appendix A.4. Notice that σ D (t, τ) captures both the continuous and the discontinuous expected variation in dividends. Moreover, the first component of b(τ; u) is simply u, such that σ D (t, τ) and VR D (t, τ) do not depend on x t. Figure 2 shows that the term-structures of dividend volatility and variance ratio are decreasing when dividends recover and increasing when they do not. The larger the speed of recovery is, the larger in magnitude the negative slope of these term-structures become. That is, accounting for recoveries helps explain the observed shape of the term-structures of dividend risk and variance ratio. 8 dividend risk are the disaster risk and the intensity risk. 9 The reason is as follows. The two main components of Time variation in jump intensity, λ t, induces an upward-sloping effect on the term-structure because it induces uncertainty 8 Beeler and Campbell (2012), Belo, Collin-Dufresne, and Goldstein (2014), and Marfè (2014) provide empirical evidence of a decreasing term-structure of dividend variance ratios. 9 Note that we do not discuss the risk implied by the Brownian motion W x because it is constant over time. 15

16 Dividend Volatility φ = 0.15 φ = φ = 0 Dividend Variance Ratio Figure 2: Term structure of dividend volatility and variance ratio vs. speed of recovery. The left panel depicts the volatility of dividends over horizons ranging from 0 to 50 years. The right panel depicts the corresponding dividends variance ratio. That is, the τ-year dividends variance relative to the 1-year dividends variance. The calibration is provided in Table 1. concerning the frequency of disaster risk. Consider now the role of z t. Over short horizons (e.g., 1 day), recoveries do not influence disaster risk. Over long horizons (e.g., 20 years), however, recoveries dampen the disaster risk that would have prevailed, had there been no recoveries (φ = 0). Therefore, recovery from disasters induces a downward-sloping effect on the term-structure. Overall, the downward-sloping term-structure of recovery outweighs the upward-sloping term-structure effect of time-varying intensity. This generates a downwardsloping term-structure of dividend risk and variance ratio when there are recoveries (φ > 0). We assume from now on that the disaster intensity is a proxy for economic conditions. That is, good, normal, and bad times correspond to a low, moderate, and high disaster intensity, respectively. Figure 3 shows that dividend volatility and variance ratio decrease with the time horizon in bad and normal times, whereas they increase with it in good times. The reason is as follows. In good times, the disaster intensity is expected to revert back up to its long-term mean, generating more risk in the long-term than in the short-term. In normal times, the disaster intensity is expected remain steady. As mentioned earlier, the fact that dividends are expected to recover in the long term implies less risk in the long term than in the short term. In bad times, the disaster intensity is expected to revert back down to its long-term mean, further reducing the risk of long-term dividends. 16

17 Dividend Volatility Bad times Normal times Good times Dividend Variance Ratio Figure 3: Term structure of dividend volatility and variance ratio vs. economic conditions. The left panel depicts the volatility of dividends over horizons ranging from 0 to 50 years. The right panel depicts the corresponding dividends variance ratio. That is, the τ-year consumption variance relative to the 1-year dividends variance. Good, normal, and bad times correspond to a jump intensity λ = λ m 0.035, λ = λ m, and λ = λ m , respectively. The calibration is provided in Table 1. 5 Term Structure of Equity Volatility and Risk Premium In this section we discuss the properties of the term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia. In particular, we show that those are increasing when the risk of disaster is time-varying and decreasing when the model is extended to account for recoveries. That is, recoveries help reconcile the literature on time-varying risk of disasters (Gabaix, 2012; Wachter, 2013) and the empirical literature documenting downward-sloping term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia (van Binsbergen, Brandt, and Koijen, 2012; van Binsbergen, Hueskes, Koijen, and Vrugt, 2013). We complete the model calibration by selecting the preference parameters. Namely, we set the relative risk aversion and the time discount factor to standard values (γ = 3, δ =.96). Then, we follow Bansal and Yaron (2004) and choose an elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) larger than one (ψ = 1.5). In equilibrium, this condition implies a relatively low risk-free rate volatility. Figure 4 shows that the term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia inherit the properties of the term-structure of dividend risk when EIS > 1. Indeed, when the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is larger than one, these term-structures are decreasing when accounting for recoveries and increasing when they do not. Moreover, the negative slopes 17

18 Dividend Strip Volatility φ = 0.15 φ = φ = 0 Dividend Strip Risk Premium Figure 4: Term structure of equity volatility and risk premia vs. speed of recovery. The left panel depicts the volatility of dividend strips for horizons ranging from 0 to 50 years. The right panel depicts the term-structure of risk premia. The red left-axis describes the red curve. The dark blue right-axis describes the blue and black curves. The calibration is provided in Table 1. of the term-structures increase in magnitude with the speed of recovery. The reason is that time is needed for the dividend to recover. Therefore, short-term dividends face the risk of a disaster and the benefit of a short recovery, whereas long-term dividends benefit from a long recovery period. Because the dividend effect is stronger than the discounting effect when the EIS is larger than one, returns become more risky in the short-term than in the long-term, i.e., equity volatility and risk premia are larger in the short-term than in the long-term. It is worth noting that, even though recoveries help explain the shapes of the term-structures of equity, recoveries significantly decrease the level of the risk premium. We show in Section 6 that this trade off can be relaxed, and this empirical inconsistency can be resolved by accounting for the joint dynamics of consumption and dividends and their co-integration. Consistent with the empirical findings of van Binsbergen, Hueskes, Koijen, and Vrugt (2013), Figure 5 shows that the slopes of the term-structures of equity volatility and risk premia become negative as economic conditions deteriorate. Indeed, the term-structures of equity are flat in good times and decreasing in both normal and bad times. In normal and bad times, returns are riskier in the short term than in the long term because of the existence of recoveries. In good times, however, the disaster intensity is expected to revert back up to its long-term mean. This tends to increase the risk of long-term dividends and therefore dampens the downward-sloping effect of recoveries. Figure 6 shows that the downward-sloping effect of recoveries on the term-structures of equity only holds for specific values of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Indeed, the 18

19 Dividend Strip Volatility Bad times Normal times Good times Dividend Strip Risk Premium Figure 5: Term structure of equity volatility and risk premia vs. economic conditions. The left panel depicts the volatility of dividend strips for horizons ranging from 0 to 50 years. The right panel depicts the term-structure of risk premia. Good, normal, and bad times correspond to a jump intensity λ = λ m 0.035, λ = λ m, and λ = λ m , respectively. The calibration is provided in Table 1. term-structures of equity are flat if the representative investor is myopic (EIS = 1), upwardsloping if he has CRRA preferences, and downward-sloping if the EIS is larger than one. When the investor is myopic, price-dividend ratios are constant in equilibrium. Consequently, the risk of short-term assets is the same as the risk of long-term assets. When the investor has CRRA preferences, the discounting effect is stronger than the dividend effect. As a result, returns inherit the upward-sloping properties of discount rates instead of the downwardsloping properties of dividend growth rates. When EIS is larger than one, however, the opposite holds and the term-structures of equity are downward-sloping. 6 Extension: A Quantitative Solution of the Equity Premium Puzzle In this section we still consider an endowment economy with a representative agent having recursive preferences. However, we assume parsimonious joint dynamics for aggregate consumption and dividends, which capture the empirical patterns documented in Section 2. Consumption and dividends are characterized as follows: log C t = x t + z t, log D t = x t + αz t + log d 0, α 1, d 0 (0, 1), 19

Income Insurance and the Equilibrium Term-Structure of Equity Roberto Marfè [This draft includes the Online Appendix] Abstract This paper documents that GDP, wages and dividends feature term-structures

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